Round 14 - Spain (Barcelona)

ACE SERIES Spain (Barcelona)
1995/96 Pole Position: 1:11.350 (Hans Gunnar Hansen)
1995/96 Race Time: wet - 1h42m30.483 (Michal Janak)
Race Distance: 65 laps

Qualifying

PosDriverTeamTimeGapPoints
1.Oliver RobertsDigitech1:11.924 20
2.Michal JanakDigitech1:12.031+0.10716
3.Hans Gunnar HansenFORT-Jiui1:12.173+0.24914
4.Alan StrangTeam Ecosse1:12.292+0.36812
5.Martin DevineEnigma Racing1:12.392+0.46810
6.Ignacio GarciaIGC Racing Team1:12.531+0.6078
7.Steffen DienerRoadrunner1:12.574+0.6506
8.Markus KruggelWild 131:12.682+0.7585
9.Axel BrunsWild 131:12.773+0.8494
10.Nuno MaltezMaverick1:12.988+1.0643
11.Juha HyvonenFORT-Jiuqi1:13.229+1.3052
12.Derek WatersMaverick1:13.473+1.5491
13.Paul BranneyTeam Ecosse1:14.968+3.048 

Race

While the season is coming to an end, the 14th round of the championship was the first appearance for Scott Dryden, driver of the Ultratrack F1 team. He and the other drivers were chasing Markus Kruggel who was in the lead after the start, followed by Oliver Roberts and Axel Bruns. While Axel lost ground after ten laps, Oliver was able to stay a few tenths behind Markus, although the championship leader was only on C compounds while the Wild 13 driver opted for D's. But when Markus came in for his first stop in lap 16, it wasn't Oliver who took the lead but his team mate Michal Janak, who drove a couple of fastest laps and closed the gap to the leading two. Michal continued to drive faster than Oliver and so he went into the pits with a 10 second lead in lap 26. His team mate came in one lap later so that the old gap was reestablished in lap 28. However, Oliver was now on D tyres while Michal pitted for another set of C's, and Oliver reduced the gap a bit.

Markus was still on a save third at this point but his second stop in lap 32 brought him near his team mate Axel and Hans Gunnar Hansen in the FORT-Jiuqi. Those three were battling for over ten laps but after everybody went into the pits between lap 46 and 48, Axel fell back a bit and the remaining podium place was to be decided between Markus and Hans Gunnar.

Lap 46 saw Oliver come into the pits, too. When he joined the race again, he was 25 seconds behind the leader. Michal, however, had to pit in lap 54 for his last set of tyres and this got Oliver on first position. Both Digitech drivers were doing similar lap times in the area of 1:15 and so the gap of 10 seconds didn't change significantly till the end.

Also in the 1:15's were Hans Gunnar on third and Markus on fourth, who were within 1 second between the last 10 laps. In lap 61 Markus managed to pass Hans Gunnar but only to see the back of the FORT-Jiuqi again one lap later. A weak last lap from Markus finally decided the battle for the third podium place and so Oliver, Michal and Hans Gunnar were spraying the champagne like mad another time this season.

PosDriverTeamTimeGapPoints
1.Oliver RobertsDigitech1h25m58.059 175
2.Michal JanakDigitech1h26m08.154+0m10.095170
3.Hans Gunnar HansenFORT-Jiuqi1h26m44.984+0m46.925165
4.Markus KruggelWild 131h26m49.666+0m51.607160
5.Axel BrunsWild 131h27m05.003+1m06.944155
6.Steffen DienerRoadrunner1h27m10.992+1m12.933151
7.Ignacio GarciaIGC Racing Team1h27m27.771+1m29.712147
8.Alan StrangTeam Ecosse1h27m49.165+1m51.106143
9.Nuno MaltezMaverick1h28m02.154+2m04.095139
10.Juha HyvonenFORT-Jiuqi1h28m33.339+2m35.280135
11.Derek WatersMaverick1h29m37.951+3m39.892132
12.Andrew ClarkAnt Hill Mob Racing1h30m03.473+4m05.414129
13.Scott DrydenUltratrack F11h31m25.365+5m27.306126
14.Paul BranneyTeam Ecosse-1 lap 123
15.Martin DevineEnigma Racing13 laps 120

Race Statistics

PosCarDriverFastest LapLL/TLPitstopsAvg.
Grip
Tyre Usage
TimeLap #StopsAvg. LengthABCDQW
1.1O.Roberts1:14.5175914/6520:20.48193  2738  
2.2M.Janak1:15.4026439/6520:26.11093  5411  
3.10H.G.Hansen1:15.218650/6520:21.63993  2738  
4.7M.Kruggel1:14.7546314/6530:24.33194   65  
5.8A.Bruns1:15.262640/6520:23.90693  2936  
6.33S.Diener1:14.675650/6530:29.09494   65  
7.15I.G.Cuadrado1:15.155580/6520:33.82693  2243  
8.5A.Strang1:14.893610/6530:34.68193  5312  
9.29N.Maltez1:15.733540/6520:28.45793  4916  
10.9J.Hyvonen1:14.928630/6520:41.49893  5510  
11.30D.Waters1:15.172640/6530:30.61193  5510  
12.41S.Dryden1:22.292360/650 88  65   
13.39M.Devine1:21.340110/130 93  13   

Fastest Lap: 1:14.517 Oliver Roberts (Digitech) LR

The first official dry race ever at Barcelona, not surprisingly, a lap record was driven.

What the top 3 said about the race

Oliver Roberts (Digitech): "Used virtually the same setup and strategy as I did in the pre-season test race. So, I was a CDD strategy, but this time I decided to pit 3 laps earlier to get onto Ds. Anyway, this seemed to work nicely, and I had a good race. The CCs were a bit slow at times, but they didn't really hold me up too much. That's about it really - pretty boring, and I didn't even see a yellow flag even though 10 of the CCs crashed out!"

Michal Janak (Digitech): "This race I started on C's from pole position. I was happy that this year was this race on dry condition. I made 2 pit stops 1st in 26th lap for fresh C's and 2nd in 54th lap for set of D's. I was surprised that first set of C's was good for 25 laps although I pushed them to maximum. My mechanics does good job too, 2nd pit stop was done under 6s. I drove excelent race (I think). My FL was 1:15.402. (top speed on finish straight about 340 kmh - using slipstreaming)."

Hans Gunnar Hansen (FORT-Jiuqi): "Went for a two pitstop strategy in this race. Started on C compound. Had pitstops on lap 27 and 47 where I opted for D's. They wore quicker than expected, but they weren't undriveable. My big problem was all the slow computer cars. Didn't have any clean laps on the last set of tyres, so therefore I couldn't come up with any really fast race laps. Think I lost quiet a lot of time because of this."


Last modified: Monday 14 July 1997 - 17:44